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Vale Inco Ltd. is challenging a request from the United Steelworkers to provide the union with a "very broad range" of internal documents at the opening day of a bad-faith bargaining complaint at the Ontario Labour Relations Board in Toronto.

Vale Inco spokesman Steve Ball said it was very unlikely the OLRB would rule on the union's request at the first of seven days set aside by the OLRB to hear the complaint.

Monday began with the company filing legal arguments to the request from USW.

The documents the union is requesting relate to "anything and everything" since April 7, 2009, said Ball, when the union and the company exchanged proposals and began bargaining for a new collective agreement.

Those negotiations obviously failed, and about 3,000 Steelworkers in Sudbury and Port Colborne walked off the job July 13. Another 200 Steelworkers are on strike against Vale Inco in Voisey's Bay, NL, in a separate labour dispute.

The union filed the bad-faith bargaining complaint against the Brazil-based mining giant Jan. 13, on the six-month anniversary of the strike.

At that time, no negotiations had been held between the two parties since well before the strike began mid-July.

Since the complaint was filed, the two bargaining committees met for 10 days of mediated talks, which ended when arbitrator Kevin Burkett said the sides were too far apart.